New Jersey Got Richer In the 1980's

By IVER PETERSON

Published: April 17, 1992

Like that of its neighboring states, New Jersey's population got richer, better educated, more diverse and more mobile during the prosperous 1980's, according to an economic and demographic portrait of the state released by the Census Bureau and by the state yesterday.

Yet despite the widespread benefits of the boom, which has since given way to recession, the decade also had its losers: the number of young children living in poverty almost doubled between 1980 and 1990, the years for which the Census Bureau reported.

"These figures confirm what a lot of people know about the 80's, that it was a real growth decade for the state, but that not everybody benefited," said Connie O. Hughes, an assistant director in the state Department of Labor for occupational and demographic research. Ms. Hughes's office published a comparison of the Census Bureau's 1980 and 1990 figures.

Ms. Hughes noted that in 1990 the state's rate of economic growth had started to slide. The Census Bureau's figures therefore describe not the New Jersey of today but the state's economic progress in the last decade. Income Rises

The result is a mostly cheerful snapshot of New Jersey's economic and demographic transit through the 80's, during which the state's population grew by 5 percent, to 7.7 million. Yet the picture also contains some dark corners. Some of the findings were these:

*Household income during the decade rose 23.3 percent in constant dollars, to $41,000, the second highest in the nation. In New York State, the comparable figure is $33,000, and Connecticut leads the nation with a household income of $42,000.

*The number of households where a language other than English is spoken at home increased by 28 percent, while the number of Spanish-speakers who say they do not speak English "very well" doubled.

*And while the fastest growing car-ownership category was households owning three or more automobiles and the number of households without telephones nearly vanished, the number of families with children 5 or younger living in poverty rose from 23,000 to 45,000 during the decade. The next largest category of poverty-level New Jerseyans was unrelated adults living together.

The figures are derived from questionnaires mailed to one New Jersey household in six by the Census Bureau. They are thus samples rather than actual counts.

While New Jerseyans went to work in large numbers during the decade -- the labor force grew by more than half a million -- they also went to school. The number of New Jerseyans with less than ninth-grade educations declined by 311,000, or 40 percent, while the proportion with high school diplomas rose from 67 percent in 1980 to 77 percent in 1990.

They came to New Jersey in greater numbers from outside the country: more than half of the state's population growth of 365,000 during the decade represented immigrants from other countries, more than half of whom in turn arrived in the United States during the last decade.

Although the immigrants are not separated by nationality in the Census data, Spanish speakers clearly accounted for most of them: the number of New Jerseyans who speak Spanish at home rose by 200,000, nearly 9 percent of the population.

Being better off, New Jerseyan's also grew wasteful when it came to getting to work during the decade: 71 percent drove to work alone in 1990, compared with 64 percent in 1980. The increase came from those who gave up shared or pooled rides, who dropped from 18 to 12 percent of all commuters.

New Jerseyans increasingly worked in offices and stores during the decade. The largest increase in employment was for technical and support workers, followed by administrators and sales personnel. The largest employment declines, 28 percent, were for machine operators and assemblers, while the second largest percentage decline may be reflective of the availability of jobs elsewhere: the number of people employed as household servants dropped by nearly a quarter. More Landscapers

Meanwhile, one of the strongest areas of job growth was agriculture, forestry and fisheries, where employment grew by 64 percent. Part of the increase resulted from the growth of the suburbs, not farms, however, since landscapers, lawn-care operators and tree surgeons are included in the group.

For its poverty data, the state Labor Department compared 1979 and 1989 figures, and they show progress in escaping poverty across a broad front except among households with young children.

The number of households receiving welfare payments declined over the period, from 190,000 to 150,000, a decrease of more than 16 percent. The number of New Jerseyans living below the poverty line also decreased, from 690,000, or 9.5 percent of the population, to 570,000, or 7.6 percent of the population. The number of households with children younger than 18 that were in poverty also dropped by a quarter, to 88,000.

But for households with children younger than 5, the number nearly doubled, to 45,000, amounting to more than 10 percent of all such families.